Eric Schmidt, the chief executive officer of Google until 2011 who later served as executive chair at the tech company and its parent firm Alphabet, has joined oracle solutions provider Chainlink Labs as a strategic advisor. According to a Tuesday announcement, Chainlink said Schmidt would guide the firm’s scaling strategy in its use of oracle networks to trigger smart contracts. Chainlink co-founder Sergey Nazarov cited Schmidt’s experience “building global software platforms for next-generation innovation” in the firm’s decision to bring the former Google exec on board. “The launch of blockchains and smart contracts has demonstrated tremendous potential for the building …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) bullish sentiment received a minor setback on Nov. 12 afte the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected VanEck’s Bitcoin exchange-traded product that planned to track Bitcoin’s spot price. However, this negative development was followed by the successful activation of the Taproot soft fork on November 13. Bitcoin developer Hampus Sjöberg, who runs a Taproot dedicated website, told Cointelegraph that the “greatest win” was that Taproot showed that Bitcoin could do network upgrades and that was important for the longevity of the network. Analysts from Decentrader also pointed out that Bitcoin’s last major upgrade was the implementation of Segwit …

There is no doubt that the $129 billion stablecoin market is bubbling, with hundreds of different projects, each with various features and functionality. However, despite the diversity, the stablecoin market is primarily dominated by the top five projects, which make up 94% of the total market capitalization and represent 99% of stablecoin trading volume, most of which are USD-stablecoins. As a matter of fact, most of the stablecoin market revolves around the U.S. dollar, adding currency exchange risks and frictions for users who don't live in the U.S. Yet, non-USD stablecoins can play an essential role in onboarding billions of …

Play-to-earn has become a popular concept in the gaming industry, with the emergence of blockchain technology taking traditional gaming to the next level. However, with so many players entering the market, these platforms are set for significant competition in the long run if they cannot bring anything above and beyond the model itself. Aloha DeFi aims to take the play-to-earn model to the next level by merging it with the concept of learn-to-earn to give participants numerous earning opportunities. Aloha began its journey as a WiFi-sharing platform focused on providing passive income opportunities to users. In practice, the platform allowed …

The total value secured by the Chainlink network has officially surpassed $75 billion, marking a new milestone for the decentralized oracle solution that has become synonymous with price data services for the rapidly growing DeFi sector. With the milestone, Chainlink has become “one of the most value securing forms of decentralized consensus on the planet,” according to protocol co-founder Sergey Nazarov. Chainlink is also one of the fastest-growing networks in all of crypto, with smart contract value secured growing by a factor of ten since last year. 2020 was a year of record growth for the #Chainlink Network. Here’s an …

The Associated Press news agency announced it would be launching its own Chainlink oracle node to ensure any data from its U.S. newspaper and broadcaster members would be cryptographically verified. In an Oct. 21 announcement, the Associated Press, or AP, said smart contract developers would have access to the agency’s “economic, sports, and race call data” once the node was operational. According to the AP, it will be publishing data on-chain for developers to access and reference in any relevant applications, in addition to providing information on upcoming elections and serving artists working with nonfungible tokens. “Chainlink technology is the …

Measurable Data Token (MDT) has announced the launch of a blockchain-based oracle service, Measurable Finance (MeFi), which has been designed to connect traditional financial data markets to the decentralized finance (DeFi) sector. In its primary showcase of utility, the project constructed a decentralized application (DApp) —accessible on both the Ethereum and testnet blockchains — which enables DeFi participants to access stock trading data from some of the world’s largest financial marketplaces, including the Nasdaq, New York Stock Exchange (NY and Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEX). With the introduction of these services, decentralized data sharing network Measurable aims to advance the …

Bitcoin (BTC) has continued to trade near the $55,000 level. The sharp rally in Bitcoin has pushed its market dominance from 40.70% on Sep. 12 to about 45% on Oct. 11. This shows that the strong recovery in cryptocurrencies has been led primarily by Bitcoin. This sharp run-up in Bitcoin has pushed the Fear and Greed indicator into the Greed zone. Although this indicator suggests that markets may have run up quickly in a short time, it does not necessarily signal a confirmed short-term top. History suggests that traders who sold their Bitcoin positions on this metric alone could have …

Blockchain technology brings a faster and more convenient way to conduct transactions over the internet — from retail to financials, even extending as far as online poker. As one of the most played online gambling games, poker has brought a rise in users, and in turn, an increasing number of fake websites, deterring new players from ever starting to play. While many argue that online poker is not rigged, many concerns have stemmed from the lesser-known sites. Regardless of the number of licenses or other approvals an online platform may have, many are still skeptical of things operating “completely right” …

Bitcoin’s (BTC) market capitalization is nearing the $1 trillion mark and several altcoins have also been rallying hard in the past few days. This has driven the Crypto Fear and Greed Index into the extreme greed territory where the range fluctuates between 79 and 100. Generally, tops are made when the index hits around 95, which shows there is some more room to run. PlanB, the creator of the Bitcoin stock-to-flow model, believes that BTC is on target to reach $100,000 by Christmas this year. Eventually, he believes that BTC price will be much higher than $100,000 before the end …

Chainlink emerged as one of the best cryptocurrency performers on Sept. 6 as the price of its LINK token jumped 8.25% against the U.S. dollar. The LINK/USD exchange rate reached $36.35 for the first time since May 20, months after bottoming out near $13.45 — thus recovering by more than 170% altogether. At the same time, its recent bout of buying saw prices bringing in about 36% month-to-date returns. Ecosystem growth Optimism Ethereum announced on Sept. 1 that it had integrated Chainlink's market-leading decentralized oracle solutions to its Ethereum layer-two services. As a result, LINK — which serves as a …

Bitcoin (BTC) finally broke above the $50,500 resistance and Ether (ETH) has risen above the $4,000 mark. This suggests that there is growing interest in cryptocurrencies and several legacy finance companies are initiating steps to tap into this increasing demand. One of the world’s largest independent asset managers, Franklin Templeton, is accepting applications for fresh mid-senior level positions in crypto trading and research, according to Linkedin job listings. Meanwhile, in Japan, financial conglomerate SBI Holdings is planning to set up one of the first crypto funds in the country by the end of November. Tomoya Asakura, the director and senior …